


Fake It 'til You Make It

by the_takis_gremlin



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Eventual Romance, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Slow Burn, They're just stupid, sort of??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27813301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_takis_gremlin/pseuds/the_takis_gremlin
Summary: Gus shouldn’t have been surprised. He really shouldn’t have been, and yet, of course, he was inexplicably caught off guard when Shawn’s solution to Gus’s request to save him from this date was to walk in and pose as Gus’s jealous boyfriend.Because of course Shawn did.---Or: The one where Gus keeps going on doomed dates and instead of figuring out a normal human reason to leave, or telling the dates that this won't work out, he calls in the cavalry immediately. Every. Single. Time.Tags will be updated as the fic updates.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster & Shawn Spencer, Burton "Gus" Guster/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 28
Kudos: 81





	1. Bellina Miller - Guiseppe's

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a oneshot writing practice type thing to dip my toes in the water. Instead it spiraled the moment I paid it attention to it, oops. Uhh, haven't really written a fic and got it to a completion point enough to share in years really, so hopefully y'all enjoy. Lemme know what you think and hopefully I can keep this ball rolling at a quicker pace now that I've knocked the first chapter out.
> 
> If nothing else, this chapter itself could work as a stand alone.

Gus shouldn’t have been surprised. He really shouldn’t have been, and yet, of course, he was inexplicably caught off guard when Shawn’s solution to his request to _save him from this date_ was to walk in and pose as Gus’s jealous boyfriend. Because of course Shawn did. Of course Shawn would see this as an acceptable method of getting out of the situation.

Never mind the fact that if Gus wanted to embarrass himself, he could have done it on his own, thank you very much. He’s spent enough years watching Shawn hone the skill to know the tricks to the trade, but Gus’s fatal mistake was forgetting that it was one of Shawn’s go to escape routes at any given time. Gus’s pride and desire to maintain decorum were forfeit the moment he, in an obvious fit of insanity, texted Shawn with a mayday message.

* * *

Gus was well aware of his own penchant to go, ah, shall we say, “love stupid.” It’d earned him plenty of teasing over the years from Shawn who has had the privilege to spectate as Gus’s rationality leapt out the car door as his lizard hindbrain took hold of the wheel and started doing donuts in the Denny’s parking lot. As such, Gus’s judgement tended to get compromised quite easily when his attention caught on a pretty face. By that point, Gus wouldn’t be calling out for help.

It was the smile that got to Gus. It was always about the smile. The twist of lips and the way their face curved around it. It was simply a little too easy for him to grow…infatuated. He fell quickly and easily into puppy love.

There does come a time though when a line is drawn in the sand. There are standards and circumstances to be considered. Gus could be swept into any number of ill-conceived schemes, something he blames Shawn for. After years of following along into every kind of crazy, dangerous, and completely idiotic plan, Gus had probably been desensitized to it. Conditioned into agreeability and resigned even as he gives token protests. Used to it enough that he already knew how to smother his misgivings with a well-placed mental pillow. Add in the voice of romance to egg him on and, well, second thoughts didn’t stand a chance.

In most cases, at least. Because again, cannot stress this enough, there _are_ standards, as malleable as they may seem at times.

In this case, the kicker that sent the ball out of bounds was-

“Come again?” Gus requested, amicable smile freezing on his face. No no, he couldn’t have heard that right. Bellina was an aspiring anthropologist, working at the Santa Barbara History Museum. He’d met her when following up regarding the correction of the plaque where they misspelled his name. She had a yorkie terrier and her mother immigrated from Italy and she enjoyed birdwatching on the weekend. She has a slight lisp and curly black hair in a pixie cut, wide brown eyes that curved at the bottom when she flashed her coy kind of smile that made Gus’s pulse kick up. She could very well be-

“Taxidermy! I’ve had a passion for taxidermy since I was eleven.” She repeated, her tittering laugh suddenly sounding much less cute as an emergency switch was flipped in Gus’s head.

Not the one. So not the one. Never the one, abort abort.

Gus simply could not condone a hobby that centered on playing around with a dead body. He respected it as a profession, sure, but to choose it as a hobby? A pastime? As something to enjoy? You gotta be out of your damn mind if you think he’s gonna play with that shit.

Burton Guster did not mess around with dead bodies and neither would any potential partner of his. Not for fun at least. Yes he’s aware one of his job deals with dead bodies on a regular basis but that doesn’t mean he likes it or walks out of his house going, “Wow, I sure would like to drain and carve out an animal corpse to put up for display today!”

Plus, the slippery slope risk had to be taken into consideration. One day you’re taxidermizing an innocent woodland creature because it’s artistic, next thing you know, you’re taxidermizing a human for the novelty. That’s the sort of crazy you don’t just welcome into your home.

(There was also a voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Shawn proposing what it would be like to walk into his shared study with his beloved Bellina and throw up when he finds the fresh carcass on her desk ready to be skinned and prepared and gosh imagine what it might smell like-

He knows Imagination Shawn is just trying to gross him out, but damn if he isn’t saying what Gus is thinking.)

Blessedly, the laugh once so sweet that now rang sinister in his ears was petering off. Except that meant she was no longer entertained. That meant Bellina might be noticing that he had been paralyzed inside his own head for the past twenty seconds and hadn’t laughed in turn.

“Burt, you okay?” She asked, punctuating the question with a consternated twist of her pouty lips. It was so unfair. He couldn’t even appreciate her beautiful face now because the mention of “Burt” cast her in unflattering felt and fabric as his mind spiraled off to Sesame Street. Gus didn’t really want to be a muppet though, so that nickname was going to need to get up out of here sooner rather than later.

“Of course!” Gus’s face finally cracked out of its frozen state except there’s nothing natural at all about the cheerful crease to his smile and flashing of his teeth. It was his winsome Salesman Charm™, employed to facilitate continued conversation as he mentally scrambled to reorient. Not to be confused with his sarcastic cheer, which was employed in the presence of his more chaotic half on the regular, but was a close adjacent. “Sorry, sorry about that.” He makes a point to punctuate his apology with a breathy chuckle, as though exasperated with himself. He was absolutely oozing Guster swagger, and now to sell it- “That is fascinating though. What kind of animals do you prefer to work with?”

There, carry the conversation thread along, distract her from his stall by diverting attention back to the topic she’s interested in.

“Oh, birds mostly. I find it to be relaxing, and there’s a lot of research and work involved to accurately rebuild the model. Their bones are so delicate!” There she went, face lighting up at the apparent positive reaction. Her excitement on the subject was making him queasy. Gus wanted so badly to not be thinking about this, but a macabre curiosity was taking hold of him (the same curiosity that Shawn liked to tease and bait to string Gus along). How deep this taxidermy hole go?

Gus needed a minute to consider his course of action, his escape plan. He needed to tip this away from a conversation and into a soliloquy. And if he couldn’t get her to? Well, maybe she wasn’t as into taxidermy as he thought, and they could work something out. Something involving a sanitation chamber and house rules under a legally binding contract that would prevent any taxidermy materials or conversation from the abode.

“Avian bones are hollow, so that would make sense. It must take a very mindful touch,” he said, offering another smile as he reached for his glass of water. Hopefully it would clear the saliva collecting at the back of his throat.

“Oh, you!” Bellina giggled, putting a hand to half cover her smile and Gus returned the look on instinct, keying in on the half visible curl of her lips. “It is hard work though. I prefer to construct my models myself. There’s something more genuine about being a part of the process, from start to finish. You know what I mean?”

“I most certainly do. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of finishing something you start,” Gus said agreeably, except gosh darn it now he was imagining Bellina’s weekend birdwatching trips ending in her laughing like a cartoon villain with a burlap sack full of sadly tweeting birds that she was going to carve up and stuff in her backyard murder shed that she had to have because who would do this inside their own home? No sane person, that’s who. Or, who not?

Gus will later point to this moment as evidence of temporarily losing his mind, as he opens his mouth to make a fatal request.

“I’ll admit, Bellina, I don’t know a lot about taxidermy personally. Would you tell me more about how the process goes?”

“Really?” Her perfectly penciled brows lifted, and Gus almost felt bad for the note of awe in her voice, even as she teased him. “You sure? Most of my dates don’t want to hear more while we’re at the dinner table. Something about body talk not being fit for when you’re keeping food company.”

“Please,” Gus scoffed, even though he felt wholehearted agreement with Bellina’s alleged previous encounters. Taxidermy should have never come up at the dinner table and he was shooting himself in the foot now to save himself from the torture of having to do it down the road. “I have no problem with it. If it’s what you’re passionate about, I want to hear it.”

That definitely got her going.

Gus allowed a moment of self-satisfaction at navigating the sudden conversation minefield, but it didn’t last long as Bellina started into talk of how she gets her “specimens.” Gus set down his cutlery as his smile strained just a smidge.

Okay, game plan time. He had to figure this out quick because 1.) he needed to duck out and think this through with a clear head because the juxtaposition of hot girl talking about dead animals was sending him all sorts of mixed messages; 2.) he needed to pick up enough of what she was rattling off to be able to continue the conversation afterwards, if he was still here by the end, and that meant he needed to be paying enough attention to provide adequate feedback.

Options included: fake a family emergency, fake a medical emergency, fake a work emergency for his pharmaceuticals jobs, fake an emergency for his psychic detective job, fake plans he forgot about and really needs to go attend to, phone a friend, or present himself as an unsuitable suitor.

At the end of the day, Gus had his pride, and he would prefer not to forfeit it immediately. Plus, this was a date. He’d prefer to maintain a certain standard of conduct, even if he was engaging in some sort of farce to get out of this date to avoid telling Bellina to her face that he though taxidermy was nasty.

Making himself an unsuitable suitor was out because if she was into taxidermy, how was he supposed to find guess something socially respectable enough that Gus would be willing and able to fake an interest in it, but still be enough to turn her off? Too risky of a play, could escalate too much and was easy to catch out.

Fake a medical emergency was also an easy misfire – too mild of an emergency and it would be a very obvious lame excuse to get away, too extreme and staff might get involved, whereupon he’d be made. There was always the excuse of having the runs, but that just made him seem in poor health and Gus would not do himself the disrespect of spreading rumors he treated his body as anything less than a temple.

Outside factor then, okay. Gus felt his stomach roll when words about organ removal and sanitation process registered and he offered smile and nod that hopefully did not convey that he felt like he was being threatened with forceps and scalpel by sheer proximity to this discussion.

He needed something and fast but he was having a hard time not listening and the aroma of Mediterranean cooking had turned sickening to the tune of Bellina’s voice, which was perhaps the worst crime of the evening.

Come on Guster, head in the game here. Outside, outside – he needed to be able to fake an emergency calling him away, which means someone needed to call his phone or he waited and hoped the wine went right through Bellina. And as it were, he wasn’t exactly keen on gambling his sensitive stomach against her bladder capacity.

Gus blindly reached for his pocket, slipping his phone out under the table, careful to keep his eyes upfront. Bellina gave no signs of sensing her date’s growing anxiety as she continued to excitedly relay the details of how the stuffing process worked. And not the yummy kind. Double disappointment there.

“Sir, ma’am, is everything to your liking this evening?” God bless their server, Wade. Good man, wonderful man- well, not that far but boy did he have some good timing.

“Oh, it’s wonderful. The hummus plate was delightful, really. Is there any way to talk the recipe out of you?” And damn if Bellina wasn’t a charmer herself. Sadly, there was no chance of hesitation after that much talk about preserving and posing a corpse as interior decoration. Gus darted his eyes down to make sure he’d opened the right contact, slipped both hands onto the keys, and frantically typing out the shortest message he could that would, ideally, prompt an incoming phone call. Without wasting any time, Gus tilted his head back up to regard Wade with a close-lipped smile as he hit send and began slipping the phone back away.

“And you sir?”

“Wonderful,” Gus enunciated carefully with a nod to be sure his sincerity was felt. Wade returned a pleasant smile at their commendations before moving on.

Smooth as silver. Gus’s allowed himself a moment to feel smug as he turned back to Bellina who was diving right back in as though she weren’t interrupted, and Gus’s stomach leapt again. Now it was just a matter of time…

A minute passed. Another minute. A few more minutes passed and by now it’d been five whole minutes. Gus felt like he could break out in a cold sweat any second. There was apparently _so much_ to talk about with taxidermy and he’d unlocked the Pandora’s Box that was Bellina’s childhood passion. No longer was she relying on visible approving cues. She was off in her own world, letting loose her enthusiasm on Gus’s captive ears and he had no one to blame but himself and Bellina’s father who passed on the accursed hobby. He didn’t want to know about the botched first attempt she made at the tender age of thirteen, but he was going to if Bellina had anything to say about it.

Fifteen minutes rolled by. Gus didn’t want to admit that he was panicking, but he was panicking. It should not have taken more than a minute after his initial SOS message went out for Shawn to call him, assuming Shawn wasn’t ignoring him. Typically, Gus could rely on Shawn getting back to him as soon as possible. It was only around 7:30pm, so there was no way Shawn was asleep and they had no current cases to keep Shawn’s mile a minute mind occupied. There was always the possibility of Shawn frying his brain on a cartoon or movie binge, except Shawn would alert Gus to those kinds of events as an open invite to join and Gus hadn’t heard of anything on the docket for tonight.

So why wasn’t Shawn calling him back?

Gus was frantically reconsidering the “explosive diarrhea” escape angle because Bellina was now starting in on the history of taxidermy and while Gus loved him some knowledge, he was feeling more trapped by the second by this siren across the table lovingly describing tacky sculptures made from skin and bone.

That disastrous plan was blown out of the water (thankfully) when a hand dropped onto the back of his chair and Gus jolted forward into the table with a barely swallowed scream. In turn, Bellina yelped, her own hands jerking and flipping the remains of her gyro wrap and salad across the floor.

“Woah, okay, sorry sorry!” A sheepish laugh came from over Gus’s shoulder and he whipped his head around to stare in muted horror at his best friend whose hands were held up in the universal sign of surrender.

Dear Lord. Why was Shawn here? How did he find him? (Both are redundant questions. Never expect Shawn to act as expected and Gus could have been found through a multitude of ways, whether it was Shawn snooping on his phone, a passing comment, or straight up following him. Gus would not put any of these methods past him.)

“Shawn!” Gus snapped, thunderous and scolding, akin to a dog owner stepping into their home only to find their best wingtip loafer’s shredded remains on the welcome mat. The startled looks from patrons sitting nearby weighed heavily enough for Gus to straighten his shirt and pat himself down while staring Shawn down from the corner of his eye.

“Gus,” Shawn returned in an equally disapproving tone, quirking a single eyebrow as though he had the grounds to be criticizing Gus right now.

“What are you doing here?” Gus hissed while attempting to telepathically strangle Shawn into cooperation through eye contact alone. Shawn’s moue of malcontent said that he heard Gus loud and clear and gave approximately zero fucks about cooperating. Gus felt his skin crawl at the attention being directed at his table and would have made an attempt to wave the concern (and judgement) away but Shawn wasn’t leaving room for that sort of social damage control right now.

“Excuse me?” Shawn’s expression pinched. “What am I doing? I’m checking in on you. It’s an hour later than when you said you’d be home and I got worried. Is that a crime now?” Shawn propped his hands on his hips like an indignant housespouse, head drawn back in a clear display of how unimpressed he was with Guster’s apparent oversight. Gus breathed forcibly out his nose, feeling a furrow dig deep between his brows as an uncomfortable heat bloomed in his chest.

“I-I’m sorry, who are you?” Twisting back around, Gus found Bellina shooting a bewildered look between the two of them. Hastily, he plastered on a harried smile on his face, hoping to convey his own sympathy and stress over this unexpected turn of events.

“This is Shawn, my-“

“I’m his boyfriend. And you are?”

Gus’s jaw snapped shut as his attempt to take lead on the situation was thoroughly derailed. As usual, Shawn grabbed ahold of the proverbial wheel and drove the entire proverbial car off the first cliff he could find and Gus was left screaming in the passenger seat, having not had the wisdom to open the door and dive out until it was too late. Buckle up and brace yourself, bucko.

Bellina blinked owlishly, eyes wide and no closer to comprehending how what had been a pleasant date until this point had flipped-turned upside down in about 15 seconds flat.

“I- I’m Bellina Miller. I’m- sorry, did you say boyfriend?” And you can see the exact moment the implications begin to register as she scrambled to catch up with the train wreck occurring across the table. Indignant, she drew herself up like a peacock challenged to a pissing contest, which would be a flattering if the challenger wasn’t his best friend pretending to stake claim to him.

“Mmm, I did.” Shawn was at his cattiest, metaphorical teeth gnashing and whip cracking. Bellina was biting her tongue, lips tight in an angry line as she stared accusingly at Shawn, caught in the dramatic flair of Shawn in the height of showmanship. “Although, I gotta say, this isn’t quite what I expected out of a – what did you call it, hon? A ‘work dinner’?”

The sneer lacing Shawn’s voice was palpable.

“Yes, it is. What about it?” Gus said mulishly, catching the hot potato and beaning it right back.

Shawn simpered, stepping forward to lean imperiously over their already messy table, propped on one arm. “Oh, just that this seems a little…too romantic? A little too cozy? Hmm?” He reached out his other hand to purposefully tip over the decorative tealight candle holder, like a defiant housecat staring down it’s human counterpart as it asserts dominance. Then he dropped to a deadpan, boring his eyes into Gus’s own. “Don’t lie to me, Burton. I know the difference between your work pants and your date pants.”

Gus tsked. “I can choose to look nice for someone other than you, Shawn.”

“So you admit you’re trying to impress Miss Miller here with your finely sculpted ass? Because, uh, that doesn’t sound like a work dinner activity to me.”

“Excuse me, I was under the impression this was a date-“ Bless her misguided little heart. Bellina was clearly wound up tight like a jack in the box, ready to spring her entire 5’ 6” frame at something but conflicted at which crazy man at the table ought to be the victim. Her interjection didn’t make it past the first gate before being tripped by a neighboring competitor.

“Bellina, sweetie, I’m sure you’re a lovely girl when you’re not poaching other people’s men and credit where credit is due, that is some fantastic eyebrow game-“ Gus subtly kicked Shawn to cut off the tangent, “-but I’m gonna have to ask you to butt out. I’m in the middle of something here.”

“What, in the middle of trying to control my life?”

“Okay, that’s it!” Shawn exclaimed, the picture of incredulity, as though someone had handed him mechanical octopus and told him to install the carburetor and don’t forget to update the wetware except Shawn wasn’t a mechanic or a wizard, thank you very much. “That is it, Guster. I am taking this-“ Shawn snatched Gus’s plate off the table, “and some of this, and this- “ began piling the complimentary pita bread on top while scooping leftover hummus next to the spread, “-and I am going home. And you’d better figure out your own damn sleeping arrangements because the moment I get there, I’m pitching all your shit out the back window!”

“Excuse me? Wh- You can’t do that!?” Gus boggled at the escalation, a mix between play acting and genuine affront that Fake Boyfriend Shawn was actually implying that he was kicking Gus out.

“Watch me. Ownership is 9/10ths of the law and if it’s only my stuff in the apartment, then clearly the apartment is mine.” That is not how that works, and Gus was torn on whether or not Shawn actually believed that because if so they needed to have some serious words later because _no._

“My name is on the lease, Shawn! It’s my apartment.” Shawn was starting to back away, holding the plate of confiscated food to his chest as though daring Gus to take it from him.

“Not anymore!”

“Shawn. Shawn!” Gus scrambled out of his chair, attention inexplicably caught on the plate, clearly reading the possessive body language, except that was his plate Shawn, you filthy little raccoon.

“It was great meeting you Bellina, I hope you have a nice trip home this evening,” Shawn called snottily before scampering away, Gus hot on his heels.

Their exit from Guiseppe’s could be compared to a couple of furious geese trying to find the toy aisle in a hardware store. In their wake they left patron and staff alike gawking after them. The floor manager attempted to accost them only to get shoved out of the way by Shawn who was now shouting about a fabricated incident of pet neglect involving Teeters, who was apparently their pet rabbit that had been rescued from an elderly neighbor that had set the poor thing on fire by accident and all Gus and Shawn’s domestic disagreements must be retraumatizing the poor thing. By the time they reached the waiter’s station, the staff were fumbling to scan Gus’s credit card as quickly as possible while Shawn and Gus slung increasingly heinous accusations at each other.

“Good luck beating me home, darling,” Shawn spit, the perfect portrait of a slighted lover about to take a swan dive off the deep end. “I’m going to get there first. I’m going to lock all the doors and windows. I’m going to dig out your precious comic book collection and start ripping out the pages on every 1st edition print you have and if you don’t like it you can eat! My! Ass!” With that, Shawn was storming out the front door, sending an incoming couple diving out of the way.

Gus, in true form, was snatching his card back from the desk attendant and nearly ripped the receipt in half with the pen as he was signing. Before they had a chance to bid him farewell (or more likely suggest a psychiatrist visit and couple’s counseling), he was tearing out the door after his menace of a best friend cum fake boyfriend, sending the same couple tripping over each other in the process.

* * *

The crisp seaside breeze registered like a slap in the face, stalling Gus’s bull charge a few feet from Guiseppe’s. The dull thunder of quiet conversation, private laughter, and clinking dishes was muted behind the closed restaurant doors. The lighter sounds of outdoor diners were overlaid with distant traffic and gulls. More striking was the smell, clear and clean (as it ever gets), laced with sea salt and pita bread.

Tension ebbed from his frame, free of the pretty taxidermy enthusiast – a shame and a victory all at once. Admittedly, he’d barely thought about why he was trying to get out of the restaurant leading up to his exit, caught up as he was in Shawn’s shenanigan(s).

Gus blew out a deep sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose and feeling vaguely disoriented. Along with the very real anxiety of his date turned sour, the overblown anger he’d slipped on like an old suit was being shed, leaving him feeling strangely exposed.

Doing these bits, selling a scene, takes a certain balance of truth and fabrication. Gus needed to believe that he was angry and set upon; he had to feel harassed and smothered to react to the accusations Shawn was leveling at him. Just now, he’d been Fake Boyfriend Gus to Fake Boyfriend Shawn, who lived together in a single apartment and apparently maintained a rather fraught relationship that was on the rocks because Shawn was an overbearing helicopter partner and Gus would rather sneak around than address any of their relationship issues.

Now he was just plain old Gus again, which should have been freeing -and it was. But it felt like he was emptied out for a second, deprived of something vital that held him upright.

“Gus.”

The world was swimming, even though his eyes were closed. He was adrift and untethered, tossed by the waves and grasping at empty air without-

“ _Gus._ ”

He snapped his eyes open, blinking away the temporary fog, to find himself staring at Shawn leaning out from behind one of the parked cars in the lot. Bright eyed and incorrigible, he appeared to be experiencing no aftereffects of the play they just put on. Relieving, if a bit aggravating. Gus huffed out another breath as he came back to himself, the thoughts and feelings of Burton Guster settling into focus under the piercing gaze of his partner, and he frowned. In response, apparently deciding that Gus was tip-top a-okay, Shawn gave a small grin. The kind that spoke of secret handshakes and sneaking out after dark. It looked like wandering off the playground at recess to explore the woods next to the school and 2 AM visits at a college dorm after six months of separation. It made him feel special.

That same warmth from earlier was filling his chest again and Gus fought down the instinct to smile back.

(He wasn’t successful. Shawn saw the twitch of his lips, the curl into the classic Gus satisfied grimace: an unholy mix between pleasantly smug and scolding, reserved especially for Shawn, who smiled a bit wider in response.)

“Shawn, what in the heck was that!?” Gus whisper shouted, stalking towards the subject of his ire, who ducked back out of sight of the restaurant entrance as Gus joined him. “I asked you to-” He cut himself off, incredulous despite the facts of life dictating he really, really shouldn’t be surprised by now. How do you respond when you find that your best friend has walked out of a restaurant holding not one, but two whole plates of food? Who needs takeout containers when you can just waltz on out with the table dressings?

Well, it’s not like Gus was going to be walking back in there anytime soon (if ever). He’s sure Guiseppe’s will miss the dishes dearly.

“Give me that,” Gus said, yanking what had been his dinner away from his crook of a friend. At the very least, the date wasn’t a complete bust. He couldn’t eat his dinner inside, but he had it with him now and that counted for something. Mostly his stomach.

Gus ignored the snort of laughter from next to him. He ignored the traffic sounds and his own too fast heart and instead sighed in contentment at the rich flavors of garbanzo beans and sesame with fresh cooked bread. Delicious. He made quick work of demolishing the hummus with a couple more pieces of pita, slapping away Shawn’s hand when he tried to sneak in to swipe a taste of the leftover appetizer.

“Ow! Uncalled for, dude. You only have your dinner right now because of me.”

His mouth may have been full of delicious Mediterranean food, but that did not mean Gus was going to let that slide. He shook a threateningly pointed finger in Shawn’s face, which earned him an eyeroll and a scoff that was ruined by the insufferable smile.

“Whatever.” The response came as easily as if Gus had spoken his misgivings aloud and had them summarily brushed off. “C’mon bud, let’s blow this joint before Bellina comes out here and sees us not tearing each other’s jugulars out.” Just like that, Shawn as breezing by, the keys to the Blueberry dangling from his fingers- What? With his free hand, Gus patted down his pockets, finding them distinctly lacking the key shape that should have been there. He shot a look at Shawn’s back, knowing there was no point in asking when, but curse it all, _when_?

In the car, Gus snatched Shawn’s ill begotten plate of falafel balls and beef skewers, holding it hostage under threat until Shawn got them back to the office post haste. Company car food rules: no open containers or loose plates. It was a miracle Gus didn’t toss them out the window, but he and Shawn both knew it was straight up criminal to waste good food like that, and they didn’t support that kind of crime.

Once safely ensconced in the comfortable and familiar sanctuary of the Psych office, it was time to address the poorly concealed elephant in the room.

“Dude,” Gus hissed, plate clattering on his desk as he dropped it in favor of punching Shawn in the side, ignoring the yelp it earned him. “I asked you to _call me_ , not pop on in and crash the whole date!”

Shawn blew a raspberry as he rubbed at the new sore spot on his side, scuttling away to his own desk. In turn, Gus dropped heavily into his swivel chair and pulled his plate of tabouleh and shawarma closer. “You wanted out of it anyway, what’s the big deal?”

Gus threw a hand out in exasperation, as though theatrically expressing himself might somehow make a more memorable impact on the thick head he was battering against. “The text literally said, ‘ _SOS call me._ ’ For all you know, I needed a totally unrelated favor! Maybe I left the oven on and didn’t want my apartment to burn down!“

“False. You’d never leave the stove on, we both know this, don’t even try that bit with me.” Shawn knew him too well, it was true.

“An oven and a stove are two different things.”

Shawn’s eyes rolled so hard Gus wouldn’t have been surprised if they slipped backwards into his skull and never came back. “My point is, you wanted out and you were desperate-“

“I wouldn’t say desperate-“

“ _Totally_ desperate. If you’d known she was a taxidermy nut, you’d have never gone on the date to begin with.”

“You know that’s right.” Gus paused, frown deepening as he stared Shawn down, attempting to channel the absolute and unending disapproval of Henry Spencer to impress the depth of his displeasure. Presumably Shawn had been in the restaurant and lurking around long enough (which didn’t necessarily have to be very long, given who Shawn was) to pick up on what had set Gus off. “ _Shawn_.”

“Come on man, don’t hold out on me. Give me all the juicy deets.” Shawn spoke through a mouthful of deep-fried falafel and grinning like he’d just won a million dollars as he brushed off any further attempts at reprimands. Shawn’s eyes were crinkled at the edges, squinted in unrepentant mirth, flashing food from between his teeth in a way that should have been disgusting and not at all endearing.

Gus smirked back anyway.

(Not once did it occur to Gus that he could have stood up and walked out of the restaurant without any explanation at all.)


	2. Monique Reyes - Wide Awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's taken over a month to extract this mess from my head, but chapter two has been completed!! 🎉 It's definitely been a process to get here, but the good news is that I have a solid story outline for this and subsequent chapters, so I have a definitive end point/goal. It should help keep me directed and on point. However, I think I'm gonna take a short break to work on some art and start my second watch of Psych and begin my critical analysis.
> 
> THAT SAID. Y'ALL HAVE BEEN SO KIND???
> 
> I honestly wasn't expecting much at all from posting this. Maybe a handful of kudos, a comment if I was lucky. So like. The response I've gotten has been. So far beyond what I thought I'd get. With that, I wanna say thank you so much to all of you who took the time to comment ♥ I'm happy to know that the story was enjoyed, and some of you took the time to pick out the whys and whats, which I love to hear. Thank you as well to everyone who has left kudos to show their support/approval!! And to everyone who has taken the time to read, I hope you had fun and enjoyed the trip. I set out to make something a lot bit ridiculous and want to capture some of that same magic Psych has, so if I can share even a little bit of that, I'm glad. Here's to chapter two, and hopefully more!! 🥂
> 
> Shoutout to asoulofstars for helping beta and being a soundboard for me throughout the writing process of this chapter!  
> 
> 
> *I wrote up my chap notes last night while suffering and doing work at like midnight and my fuckin browser just crashed and ate the whole thing so I'm a little salt rn and just had to retype it all to the best of my memory >:') Pretty sure the first version was better oops
> 
> * * *

After some careful consideration, critical review, and meditative soul searching, Gus was able to say confidently, yet regretfully, that things between himself and Bellina would never have worked out.

That is to say, he knew it the moment he began sharing the details with Shawn, who was an enthusiastic participating audience that cooed and booed in all the right places. Not that Gus admitted this conclusion quite so openly. It would be suspect if he wrote her off completely when he’d normally spend at least an hour agonizing over the decision before admitting any such thing. Despite the creepy and genuine affection for the craft of putting stuffed corpses on display, as much as it sent him mentally running for the hills, Gus clearly recalled wondering if he and Bellina could work something out.

Consequently, it was discomfiting to realize he was already at peace with the matter before he’d indulged in his usual should-I shouldn’t-I song and dance. Sometime between Shawn crashing their dinner with the finesse of a bear divebombing through a skylight and both of them escaping into the night like the couple of miscreants they are, he’d apparently concluded that there was no point in seeing Bellina again. The unconscious decision set his teeth on edge, raising gooseflesh along his arms and shoulders as he stared across the office at his distraction of a best friend. When Gus had called in the cavalry, he’d done so with the express purpose of getting some breathing room to think. And yet, as soon as that space had been attained, he didn’t need to think on it anymore?

He settled for acting coy about it, saying he’d make amends next time he saw Bellina at the museum, although the smirk Shawn threw his way said what both he and Gus already knew – that shit was never going to happen.

Gus was okay with that. It was definitely because of the taxidermy though, and nothing else.

He watched on as Shawn licked his misbegotten plate clean before starting in on greasy fingers. It was only through the grace of years of exposure to this brand of uncouth behavior that Gus’s only outward reaction was a vaguely sickened expression.

Nothing. Else.

This did leave Gus in the very real and very awkward predicament of having met Bellina through his continued conversation with the museum regarding that terrible plaque that, quite frankly, was actively defacing his reputation.

He’d be sure to send Bellina a handwritten apology letter for his boyfriend’s behavior and any misunderstandings of Gus’s own intentions throughout their interactions.

(Not that his intentions had actually been misunderstood at first, but Bellina didn’t really need to know that. It was better to cut ties now that his interest had been thoroughly dashed.) He would also be requesting a new contact with the museum, given the awkward personal situation she had been exposed to. It seemed like the right thing to do.

* * *

Following the Guiseppe’s Fiasco, as he’d taken to referring to the interrupted date, Gus was left feeling… just a bit off. Like something had slid out of place in his brain when he wasn’t looking and now he kept smacking into it as he went about his usual business. He felt it each day while hanging out at Psych, each time they went out for food runs, whenever he checked his phone while on his route or stuck at the Central Coast Pharmaceuticals office. (It was particularly noticeable each time his eyes found Shawn and got stuck in place.) With each odd halt and hang up, a silent titter echoed through his head, pointing his attention in the direction of this out of place _thing_ that he just couldn’t seem to put his finger on. Something was going on, but nothing seemed out of place, and so he was content to leave well enough alone (content to not acknowledge it), even as it threatened turn his day upside down at a moment’s notice. More than likely, this would have carried on indefinitely if his face hadn’t been grabbed and stuck it right up against the pineapple-shaped mental end table that hadn’t exactly been moved but had apparently grown three inches and now stuck into the walking path from the mental couch to the mental kitchen and would continue to grow if someone didn’t get a hacksaw and cut it back down to size.

This rather concerning revelation dawned on the tail end of the monthly battery of back-to-back appointments for “psychic readings” that tied up Psych operations for anywhere from four to seven days. They would have been better off looking for a medium – not that Shawn turned down the business they brought in. They were staples of the agency, after all. These suckers kept the electricity on and the snack stash stocked. Most of these patrons tended to be housespouses who wanted a little bit of intrigue to spice up the daily doldrums of their suburban lives. A good half of them were looking for the kind of intrigue that had Shawn cranking the charm up in hopes to collect some handsome tips (which he did) while draining the good humor from Gus’s body like he’d broken the spigot off a water tank and left it to empty onto the floor.

One of the straggler appointments following the rush was a willowy brunette with high cheekbones and dewy eyes. Honestly, Gus didn’t give her a second look until Shawn was calling for his attention, dragging Gus into the palm reading to give a “second opinion.” Things only got worse from there as Shawn apparently decided that convincing the client that he’d knocked his brain clean out of his gourd around 2nd grade and had never bothered to find a replacement was a sound business strategy. He kept fumbling words Gus _knew_ Shawn knew (and Gus was forced to correct him because they didn’t need to look like uneducated reprobates in front of the clientele, thank you) and going on tangents that somehow led to asking Gus questions Gus knew Shawn already knew the answers to (favorite food, favorite tv show, dream date, this list goes on, all inane and all irrelevant to a _palm reading_ ). At some point during the ordeal, Shawn had started knocking things off the table with wild (unnecessary) gestures, which he repeatedly would ask Gus to pick up after apologizing for being such a klutz. And as much as Gus wanted to tell Shawn to stuff it up his ass and pick up his own shit, they were entertaining a client, so he grinned and bore it. More frustrating than Shawn’s constant pestering was the fact it seemed to somehow be working on this nuisance of a woman. She giggled and simpered, throwing just as many looks Gus’s way as Shawn did. Gus knew a good friend, a _best_ friend, would play a better wingman for the obvious tension here, but he was so entirely not in the mood. By the time she finally left the office, Gus’s disposition more closely resembled a wolverine baring its teeth as it entered the ring for a territorial death match than the Pleasant Salesman persona he’d donned to cope with nauseating byplay.

Arms crossed and leaned on the edge of his desk, Gus watched was the woman whose name he threw out the moment he learned it made an exit stage left and out of the office. His brain was sizzling, like oil over high heat, bubbling and popping from the restraint of not kicking her out thirty minutes ago when she’d brayed her first stupid horse laugh. At least it was over now and he could put this out of mind-

“Dude, what the fuck was that?”

Gus barely turned his head, opting to give Shawn a stinky putrid side-eye.

“Excuse me?” Gus’s expression twisted into something even surlier at the absolute gall Shawn had right now. Was he surprised? No. When did Shawn ever not have the gall? But Gus didn’t want to deal with gall right now. He didn’t want to have a bone deep craving for comfort sugar and to feel like a used napkin that was jealous of all the other clean napkins. He was flustered and irritable after being put on the spot for the past forty-five minutes while Shawn made a monkey show of himself in some ill-conceived scheme to get the attention of a mediocre, at best, superstitious floozy that spent her money on early afternoon psychic readings in hopes of scoring some tail. And they’d both sat there, Shawn and his floozy, acting like Gus was the one intruding on some private dinner date and that the only thing keeping Shawn from ravishing her on the spot was the inconsiderate persisting presence of the person who handled the accounting that paid for the office. “No. No, you cannot possibly believe you actually have grounds to come at me right now, Shawn.”

“I’m- ‘come at you?’” Shawn wasn’t hiding his incredulity in the slightest, straightening up from where he had been lounging on the recliner and eyeing Gus like he was a wild animal that had wandered into the office and made itself at home on the linoleum. “Gus, don’t be Shakespeare’s lost screen write ‘Love’s Labour’s Won.’ If I was ‘ _coming at you_ ,’ I would be a lot more creative than ‘what the fuck.’ It’s like you don’t even know me.”

Gus tsked and turned away. “Shut up, Shawn. I am not doing this with you right now.”

He could hear Shawn shift on the upholstery but dared not look for risk of losing control of the squirming angry ball of emotion constricting his chest.

“You’re not- doing- what exactly do you think we’re doing right now?”

(Gus was sure he should be moving around his desk and collecting his things to leave. That would be the smart move. He was upset, far more upset than was called for, and it would be best to retreat so he could reorient. Except his feet were lead weights, refusing to pick themselves up because what if that woman came flouncing back in once he left? He bristled at the mere notion. He needed to check her name and block any future appointment requests.)

“Didn’t I just say shut up?” Gus snapped, scrubbing one hand roughly across his face. “I heard myself say shut up. I just spent the better part of an hour helping you debase yourself for attention, I have the right-“

“Gus.” Gus’s heart tripped as he immediately clammed up. Shawn must be feeling particularly frisky with his adult emotions today if he was pulling out his Serious Shawn™ voice. “What exactly did you think I was doing?” Gus’s pulse was racing again, his anger forced to share space with muted dread that was gaining footing for every second the question hung between them, unanswered.

The adult in Gus said to talk it out. The key to any healthy relationship was good communication. The child in him that had grown up with Shawn Spencer said beans to that, what had good communication done for him lately? With that in mind, he remained perched on the edge of his desk in petulant and defiant silence, refusing to look at his friend.

Shawn was such an asshole. An honest to God asshole. How is it that the one time Gus wants to just move on, Shawn decides to pull up his Big Boy Pants and open up a can of Emotional Availability? The one fucking time Gus wants to wallow in his self-pity and anger and Shawn has to spoil the whole thing-

Apparently, Shawn had gleaned _something_ from the tense form of his best friend because he finally broke the standoff.

“Buddy…I was trying to set you up with Nadia. I didn’t want to go out with her. I wanted to help you go out with her.”

The self-righteous tirade in Gus’s head took a sudden u-turn in a busy four-way intersection and went up in flames. He wheezed some inarticulate, meaningless noise in response, distantly grateful that Shawn could not see his face in that moment.

“You’ve been acting like you’ve had a live weasel living inside your shirt for the past week, dude,” Gus heard Shawn explain patiently with a growing undertone of amusement that was growing more evident by the second. “I thought a date might cheer you up since Belladonna’s cursed animal puppets blew up in your face and ruined your last one.”

Shawn waited after that, clearly allowing Gus time to come to terms with this revelation, and what a revelation it was. This was certainly awkward, given how Gus had been acting, but that was the rub of it, wasn’t it? Even what he had thought was going on shouldn’t have that level of agitation, and certainly didn’t explain the past week of wily behavior. Achingly slow and with an expression only moderately arranged into something approaching consternation and not dawning horror, Gus turned to face Shawn. “Oh.”

(There it was. The pineapple shaped mental end table, accusing and obvious. Of course he’d seen it before now, but he’d been ignoring it. What was he even supposed to do about it? Except now he had sprained an ankle from tripping over it and if he kept ignoring it, he would no doubt injure himself worse next time around.)

It certainly wasn’t his most elegant proclamation, but Shawn got a kick out of it, so there’s always that.

“I practically handed that to you on a silver platter! Nadia was _sooo_ your type, too. She was totally into you, man!” Now Gus was no longer presenting the impending signs of a man about to blow a gasket, Shawn began to bust a gut at Gus’s expense. Gus grimaced, embarrassed (among other heavier emotions, but embarrassment was easier to handle so, embarrassment it was) by the complete misread he’d hade of the situation, looking anywhere except for the source of the raucous noise.

He clicked his tongue loudly, projecting to overpower both Shawn and the mounting clamor in his own head. “You two were playing kissy face with each other the whole time, I rightfully assumed that-“

“We were playing kissy face at you, you sweet, oblivious dork!” Shawn snorted, grinning wildly as Gus squirmed, feeling not unlike an overcooked marshmallow. It was almost enough to distract Gus from the fact that Shawn hadn’t looked away from him once.

Wait. Shit. It was a struggle not to go stiff at the realization and Gus wasn’t quite sure he succeeded.

Any other day, Shawn would rag on him mercilessly for such a gigantic blunder, what with getting himself all worked up over some perceived slight. But on any other day, Shawn also would have incited Gus to hissing and spitting before popping his bubble, just to have that much more ammo.

Any other day it’d be safe to let Shawn lead this conversation where he pleased. Today was not any other day.

Don’t be afraid, Guster. He can sense fear. Be strong.

“W-well, I don’t- Maybe she shouldn’t have been!” Gus blustered, struggling past the grip of pervasive numbing shock holding his brain hostage to dive for the sidewalk where he’d dropped the raw frustration from before, picking it up and frantically dusting it off in hopes of salvaging it into something useful. He needed a redirection, something to move them far, far away from talking about why the thought that Shawn had been seducing that woman had set Gus off. “It shouldn’t take you acting like a complete ditz to set someone up.”

Shawn was still coming down from his giggle fit, scrutinizing his friend with sharp eyes, but he favored Gus with a skeptical squint that either said _go on, I’m listening_ or asked _what exactly have you been smoking that made you think that statement was meaningful?_

Gus heaved a deep sigh and ground his knuckles into his forehead for a moment. “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t like seeing you act like you’re stupid?”

“What?” Shawn scoffed, wearing an expression like he’d just kissed the inside of a lemon. Understandable, really, but missing the point entirely. “Dude, I do that all the time-“

“No, shut up- I mean it. There’s a difference between mixing up phonetically similar words and forgetting what half the English language means. You shouldn’t play at being dumb just because you think it’ll make me look better by comparison.”

“Holy shit. Okay, _fine,_ Mister Picky Pants! Next time, I’ll figure out a better way to show off your big brain-“

“Shawn!” Gus barked, unwilling to let this go now that he’d broached the subject. “This isn’t about me. This is about you.”

Shawn blinked back at him, expression twisted in bewilderment, eyebrows arched and mouth slightly agape, seemingly unsure on how to respond. Gus didn’t give him long enough to figure it out either.

“I know you’re smart, okay? An absolute dumbass, sure, but…I know you flubbed all that stuff earlier just so you could get me to correct you. I know that you didn’t need me to correct you.” Gus stated diplomatically, but sternly. Turnabout is fair play and Shawn is the one that started it today. If he got to pull out his “adult with emotional maturity” credentials, then so did Gus, even if it was for the express purpose of diverting them away from other serious adult topics. “I don’t want to help you make yourself seem like something you’re not, Shawn. Not like this.

“I don’t like it. And you shouldn’t either! You-“ Gus paused, swallowing as he pushed past the scritch-scratch of trepidation that said he was treading dangerous waters to say what damn well needed saying because diversion or not, it was true and Gus had watched Shawn play the fool when he felt it necessary for far too long to let him keep doing it in when it wasn’t. “You deserve better. So quit clowning on yourself when you don’t need to.”

Shawn stared at him, eyelids fluttering a bit, breathing out some small noise adjacent to a scoff, but not really. Gus stared back, refusing to budge even as his heart rattled anxiously in his chest.

This time, Shawn looked away first.

Shawn’s expression melted into something soft as his eyes wavered around the office and Gus was left feeling weak around the edges. Even as his fingers twisted together in his lap, Shawn’s shoulders were loose and lax as he finally settled on looking off to the side as he smiled a quiet, guilty sort of smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

For a moment, Gus was thrown back in time, back to when they’d been awkward teenagers stubbornly patching up each other’s wounded self-confidence under the cover of night during beachfront strolls and stolen moments between classes, bolstering their defenses against the pervasive threat of teen angst. It was a smile he hadn’t seen in years, but it had never failed to utterly overwhelm him.

He was across the room in seconds, dragging Shawn to stand and hugging him tight. It took a moment (it almost always did when Gus caught Shawn off guard like this) before Shawn hugged back, laughing warm and low as he snuffled against Gus’s neck.

Shawn would never let something so open and emotional last for more than a few minutes though and was quick to drag them back to more familiar territory with the suggestion of early dinner, to which Gus heartily agreed. If they were cozier than usual throughout the evening, neither of them felt the need to comment on it. Gus was safe for the time being from the end table conundrum, able to wrap himself in the familiar push and pull of friendship with Shawn to put off his existential crisis for just a little bit longer.

The reprieve lasted right up until he cleared the doorway to his apartment, whereupon it suckerpunched him in the chest and gave his gut a few solid kicks for good measure.

Gus was keenly aware of the fact he’d only forestalled disaster today. If he wanted to avoid it entirely, he had to get his shit together and fast because Shawn was onto him. Maybe not as to what precisely was up with Gus, but that something was going on. Gus hadn’t exactly been subtle thus far, which had to change immediately if he wanted to have any hope of convincing Shawn (and himself) that he was suffering nothing deeper than a random bout of insecurity and stress.

It wasn’t the first time this particular affliction has reared its head, and while previous bouts had been more isolated and less subject to scrutiny, he was determined to not let this instance get any more out of hand than it already was.

Initially, Gus tried to carry on as like everything was normal, making a concentrated effort to not come off as unusually neurotic, wily, or jumpy. Awareness of the issue had magnified its effects though, making things that were second nature and built into his daily life excessively stressful as not only did he continue to trip on them, but he could also hear the alarms going off in his head this time. (Was it more or less concerning that the only thing that was actually different was that Gus was reacting weirdly to stuff that was normal for them?)

Within a few days, he’d accepted that willing the problem away just wasn’t going to cut it. After all, the damn thing had persisted on its own for over a week before now and awareness of the issue had borne no change. No, something had to be done. Shawn was giving him too many long, searching looks and waiting around would only doom Gus to being found out.

By some stroke of luck, within a day of Gus’s resolution to take action, Psych was brought on board by the SBPD to investigate a chain of robberies that were scarily clean. That said, one of Psych’s many specialties is solving impossible to solve mysteries.

Meanwhile, Gus started putting in extra effort to maintain his pharmaceuticals job. When he wasn’t helping Shawn work through the scarce evidence the department could provide him with, Gus was running his route and making sure his face was seen just a tad more than the required bare minimum within the Central Coast Pharmaceuticals offices. During one of the water cooler powwows he sidled his way into, Gus struck gold. Caught between shock, elation, and a stubborn reticence that didn’t actually want to fix the current state of affairs (which just made Gus double down harder on the fact he _needed_ this), he nearly blew it. Nearly being the operative word there. Somehow, he dragged his wide eyed and near unresponsive ass through a conversation that saw him walking away with a phone number and a promise to get in touch once he was free of his current active detective case.

It took at least one more robbery being committed to solidify Shawn’s suspicions into evidence. The thief turned out to be a hobbyist that lived across town who’d gotten bored of playing pretend with toy safes and locks. At least this guy didn’t pull a gun when the whole kit and caboodle broke down his door and discovered the hoarded stash of ill begotten junk and riches.

Thus, the Saturday afternoon following the arrest of Mitchen Wilkhems found Gus meeting up with Monique Reyes at a quaint little café called Wide Awake.

* * *

There was a buzzing in his chest and a twist to his stomach that he staunchly told himself was excitement, and excitement only, as he stepped inside the café. His nerves spiked as he cast his gaze about, doubts clouding and clinging to his head. What if she stood him up? What if he’d imagined the invitation and text conversation in his desperate bid to distract himself from the ever-present weight pressing in on his life? What if he had to turn around now and go back to Psych and-

There. Sitting at a window booth across the shop was Monique, paging through a novel as she waited, though she was looking up at the sound of the bell over the front door. She was breathtaking. Picturesque. She wore oversized circle glasses these days, making her eyes look just a bit bigger than they already were, with coiled black flaring around and framing her face and a brightly patterned headband used to keep her vision clear. She wore a scoop neck shirt and a dainty gold chain necklace. Her shoulders were draped in a russet-colored shawl that had bright blues and greens and gold embroidered into a blocky repeating pattern. It had been years, but he didn’t think she’d ever looked so good.

Meeting Monique again was certainly a twist Gus would never have expected. Monique had attended high school with Shawn and himself, two years ahead of them. Gus remembered being absolutely smitten with her, which no one could blame him for. She was basically perfect? Warm tawny skin and hooded golden-brown eyes with full lips that unfailingly split with every smile to reveal shiny white slightly-too-large front teeth. Of course, back then, Gus had been caught on her….other assets a bit more than her smile. But her face had been the socially acceptable place to lock his gaze and so he had made valiant efforts to maintain that (while anyone other than Shawn was paying attention to him, at least). It hadn’t been just a physical attraction to Monique though, gosh no. She was stunning, for sure, but she had also been an academic icon to him. Not only had she been captain of the cheer squad, but she headed up the yearbook committee, hosted afterschool events for three different student clubs, and had graduated salutatorian. In the same way Shawn had crushed on Abigail, Gus had crushed on Monique.

Unlike Shawn who had made it his mission to tell Abagail at least one bad joke a day and invite her on increasingly odd and made-up potential dates, Gus had taken a much more reserved and hands-off approach with Monique. Which translated to staring wistfully from across the hallway, clapping the loudest when she stuck a landing in a cheer routine, and always having Shawn nearby to pinch his arm if he ever got too close to waxing poetic when she deigned to interact with him.

And somehow, here they were. Sixteen years after Gus’s last longing look down the hall at a retreating hourglass figure and bouncy black hair, he was walking to meet her at a table in a quaint little café where she was excitedly waving him down.

“Oh, Gussy, heeeey!” Monique sing-songed, flapping her wrist in a wave as he made his way to her table, heart pounding a marathon against his ribcage.

“H-heeey-” Gus fumbled, immediately berating himself when his voice shook, but who could blame him? Who wouldn’t hesitate in front of Monique? There was nothing wrong with being nervous when approaching an equally beautiful and attractive person, especially when that person approached you first. It’s flattering to be surprised at their interest. It’s common courtesy, actually, if you think about it-

No, no, stop it, he needed to be smooth, not justifying his anxiety! Just because he knew Monique from high school didn’t mean he had to _act_ like a high schooler. Remember, she came onto him, no wingman necessary. Just the good old Guster swagger that drew her in as he smiled politely at Hensler from Accounting’s joke about stoat fur jackets. It was undeniable proof that Gus had game. Now it was time to act like it, damn it. There was no Shawn here to pinch him now, so it was up to Gus to squeeze his hand tight and dig nails into the meat of his palm until he could operate like someone who was vaguely aware of how human interaction works.

Time to try that again. “Hey, Monique,” He greeted, no choke to be found this time, even if his chest still felt too tight and skin too warm. Stay the course, he could do this- “Is this seat taken?”

Monique’s pursed lips curled into a good-natured smile, creasing dimples into her cheeks. “Well, the seat is reserved just for you.”

“Don’t mind if I do then,” Gus returned primly. As he settled in, Monique launched into small talk, easy stuff like weather and recent big news stories in the area and an upcoming street fair a week or so from now. She carried the conversation, light and breezy, as Gus tried to find his footing.

It felt unreal, reopening this chapter of his life. It was like pulling down a book he’d read fondly in childhood, with worn out pages and loose spine, once well-loved but now coated with dust from where it had remained untouched for over a decade. He couldn’t help but think of who he had been when he’d last read the words written on the pages.

Sixteen and in the thick of puberty, struggling to carve a spot for himself within the vicious social hierarchy of preps and jocks and overachievers. Gus had wanted to stand out, to be admired and accepted by his peers. He wanted to make his mark and have that mark say “Burton Guster was here – the sexiest and smartest person ever.” As with many teens, he’d had a burgeoning ego that wished to spread its wings and threatened to heel turn into anger and hurt at the drop of a hat.

Gus hadn’t been like other teens though. He actually did something with that blossoming ambition. He took his Mom’s lessons to heart and held them close at hand as braved his peers, liberally applied them to combat bruises and blisters across his self-esteem. And when that hadn’t been quite enough, he’d eased the sores away with popsicles on the beach with Shawn and commiseration while tucked into a blanket fort while playing Mario Kart. Gus tackled high school with aplomb and a staunchly positive attitude, much like he had middle school, and much like he would college and his future career. How different was he now, from that too proud teenager that made it a point to know every classmate and every teacher on the off chance it would give him a leg up? How different was he from a boy riddled with peculiar habits and hobbies who preferred to use precise language and planned every event down to the letter, with contingencies laid out for anything from a falling out with the football team to the zombie apocalypse?

He was that same kid still, in so many ways. Same interests, same fashion sense, same positive attitude, same best friend. But he was different too, aged and ripened, like a fine wine. He had experience and maturity, wisdom and so much more knowledge – he was proud of that one. Hopefully he’d find a similar balance here this afternoon with Monique.

If nothing else, her chatter was soothing, unexpectant, and Gus was grateful for the steadiness it afforded him while he gathered his wits.

By the time the server arrived at their table, Gus was feeling steady and eager to move the one-sided conversation towards more substantial topics than the potential for a rainy afternoon tomorrow or the recent adultery scandal with the city council treasurer.

“So, Monique, how did you end up at Central Coast?” He cut in smoothly as she finished placing her order. She was all too happy to respond.

* * *

As the date went on, Gus’s sense equilibrium began to slip. The lens of nostalgia was still there, but the rosy glow was fading fast. Monique was less and less a teenage idol and more and more a very real woman sitting across from him.

He learned that she’d gone into biochemistry after high school and gotten a degree at Arizona State University, where her uncle worked. She’d moved around the country a few times, building her resume by working in several labs and worming her way onto any interesting project that came through her doors. This led her back to Santa Barbara when she received a job offer as a lab manager, where she could start vetting and controlling the project priorities and spaces. She was looking forward to getting to know the area again, and when she’d recognized Gus, she’d gotten so excited to see an old familiar face in a (sort of) new place, she just had to talk to him immediately.

Between an anecdote about her college roommate and favorite classes, their food arrived. By the time Gus had polished off his chicken, bacon, and bleu cheese sandwich and his salad, Monique had barely put a dent in her own avocado and sprouts on rye. She hadn’t even opened her bag of chips yet.

The problem was, the longer Monique spoke, the more his focus slipped off her face and down to her plate. He’d shake himself and smile wide as he yanked his attention back around, but it was like trying to corral an unruly horse who’d had quite enough of being fed directions for one day. His thoughts inevitably drifted again, wondering if he should place another order or try his luck poaching her meal. Which was distinctly not what a good date should be thinking about as Monique jumped topics to talk about the struggle of apartment hunting when she’d started planning her move back. Try as he might though, the siren song of food was slowly but surely drowning her out. It was about this point that he knew that they had a problem on their hands, aside from the fact that the café’s cuisine, unsurprisingly, left something to be desired (like a second or third course).

Consequently, it was also at this point that he began to spiral.

It was hard to pinpoint the root cause of the issue because it seemed impossible that it could be Monique herself. Her voice was musical, yet it did not stir butterflies in his stomach. Her body was beautiful, yet it did not draw his eyes to wander. Her smile was sunshine bright, yet it did not spur his heart to race.

He could easily recall having struggled on all three of these fronts in the distant past, and it wasn’t like adulthood had treated her anything but well. Yet now, he was felt a whole lot of nothing looking at her.

By some sick, cosmic twist of fate, his teenage crush had slipped away. Quietly and without fanfare; it came, it saw, and it passed. In its quiet wake, Gus was left alone on a dinky little lifeboat, wondering when exactly he got out to sea, alone, and how exactly he was supposed to get back to shore. On its deathbed, his crush must been having a real laugh at his expense because the life vest that should have come equipped with the dingy was conspicuously absent. Just to give him one last kick in the balls on its way out.

This was a travesty. A disaster. It was- Gus knew it was overdramatic, but in that moment, it felt like the worst possible thing that could have happened to him.

(Maybe distantly Gus realized what was to blame for this conundrum, but that idea was still far too daunting to face head on, so he instead turned a blind eye to it and opted to suffer the frustration of not having answer for this absurd development.)

The sinking pit in his stomach finally bottomed out as she talked about settling back into Santa Barbara, and Gus was suddenly struck with the need to be as far away from here as possible.

“Excuse me- I’m sorry,” Gus cut in, rising abruptly from his seat and holding up a placating hand to his sweet, considerate, should-have-been-perfect-but-somehow-wasn’t-working-for-him date. “Hold that thought. I need to take a quick trip to the men’s room.”

He wasted no time in absconding, holding his genial expression in place as he made a beeline for the back. As soon as he crossed the threshold into the restroom, something in him gave out and all bets were off. Gus dropped against the counter in front of the sink and mirrors, staring at his own shocky expression while he sucked down air like it was about to expire and his mother taught him better than to waste perfectly good oxygen.

Was this actually happening? He’d leapt at the chance to go on this date with the hope something would spark, and for one shining, glittering moment, he thought he’d tasted the nectar of success. Monique may not be perfect (who was?), but she was pretty damn close. If she had asked him out all those years ago, Gus would have dropped everything in his mad scramble to agree. He would have been over the moon. He would have been on cloud nine. He would have felt invincible.

Right now, he felt like he was about to have a panic attack.

What he should do is walk back out there and try to make this work. See the date through, give them an honest chance. Maybe he just needed some time to kindle a connection, stoke the fires of his heart a bit. Imagine it! Them, together. Beachside walks with smoothies, lazy Saturdays spent indoors, her wearing his clothes in the early morning after a late night, visits to the Psych office to playfully make out at his desk chair. Somehow, all the thought did was make him woozy. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Gus must have blacked out for a second there because the next thing he knew, there was something pressed to his ear producing a sound that pierced through his muddy brain like an ice pick.

“Y’ello, this is Dave & Guster’s Bar and Grill, not to be confused with-“

“Shawn!” Gus wheezed, clutching the counter tight in a desperate bid to find support as the world relocated about 5 inches to the left and forgot to bring him with it. “I- Listen. Things are not working with Monique.”

“Mmm?”

The inquisitive little noise was all the acknowledgement he needed to let loose. “I don’t even know what happened out there! She was talking about her new neighbors and their dog Munster-“

“Ooh, like the cheese?”

“-and at first I felt good but now it’s all sour and I don’t even know why! She’s so hot, Shawn. She is so, so hot and _there is something wrong with me_!” Gus hissed, wishing for a moment he had hair to pull to punctuate his frustration.

“I- Okay? Ow, piss- Gus, I’m sorta in the middle of something, can’t you tell me how smokin’ she is later?“

“No, I can’t, Shawn,” Gus snapped. “Are you listening? I have a problem. A major problem!”

“Is that problem a surprise bon-“ Gus drowned out the rest of Shawn’s quip with a noise that firmly landed somewhere between a snarl and a running wheedwhacker. Gus didn’t need to see Shawn to know the responding scoff came with an eye roll. “Alriiight, fine. How, exactly, is that a problem? Usually, hot dates are a good thing; the best thing, actually.” At least it sounded like Shawn was paying attention to him now, even if only to express how insane he thought Gus sounded.

“Because it is, Shawn! It’s the worst thing! If she was hideous, or collected toenails, or ate babies or something, at least this would make sense-“

“And what is ‘this,’ man?” Gus felt something icy wash across his nerves and watched his own expression go wild for a brief moment. “I know it’s hard to remember I’m not actually psychic, but you’re gonna have to work with me here. Fuck, come here already you little-”

When Gus found no words were forthcoming with which to form a response, he opted to keep his mouth shut and scream in his throat – a good compromise between wailing inconsolably and remaining respectful of the place of business having his meltdown in.

Thankfully, Shawn accepted that ‘haha funny banter time’ would need to come later because Gus’s bandwidth was running out fast. “Hey hey, okay, bud,” Shawn’s voice crackled across the phone line, pitching soft and soothing in a counterpoint to Gus’s jittering everything. “Everything’s fine, Gus, deep breaths. You good? Of course you’re good. Smooth as grade A butter good. You got this.” Gus nodded blindly. He did have this and didn’t need Shawn to tell him that, although it did make him feel a bit better. “Alright, you guys are at that new place at the docks, right? Sells those chai drinks in the giant teacups and they’ll make you lil’ portraits in the foam if you ask?”

Gus paused. “Which docks, Shawn? Do you mean the Boardwalk on Southside? How about Stearns Wharf? Maybe you’re looking for the Fuel Dock or Condor Express or-“

“Are you actually- fucking, Stearns Wharf, okay? Is now really the time for this?”

“There’s always time to be correct, Shawn.” The moment stretched until the beat was missed and Gus smugly marked it down as a win for proper attention to detail in the never-ending war against misinformation. The victory was short lived, sadly.

“So, like. It is that place down at the docks that does the foam art, right?“

His shoulders slumped and he shot the mirror a world-weary look in lieu of Shawn since Shawn wasn’t exactly present to receive it. He’d have to be sure to deliver it to him later. “Yes, it’s at Stearns Wharf and I have no clue if this is your foam art place or not! How would I even know if-“ A long and loud groan from over the line has Gus rolling his eyes Heavenward. “Wide Awake. The place is called Wide Awake.”

“Mmm, can’t say for sure. Are there any meaningful landmarks I could triangulate your position off of, or…?”

This man was unbelievable. “It’s approximately fifty feet from where Pauline’s Corndog Stand is on the weekends-“

“Got cha’! Finally, you furry little goblin-“ Shawn’s voice petered out for a moment before returning more clearly. “Okay, meet me outside in like twenty minutes.”

“Wh- I’m on a date, Shawn!“ What in the world was happening? Gus was already mid plans, he couldn’t just skip out for other plans, especially spur of the moment ones, double especially in the middle of a date. Even if said date was a disaster that made him want to crawl into a whole with a lifetime supply of Dippin’ Dots Cookies ‘n Cream and disappear.

“Ask her to get some fresh air with you. Don’t look for me, I’ll find you. Good luck, Gus, I believe in you!” Dial tone. Gus stared at himself, dazed, as the brief reprieve of normality he’d grasped but for a few minutes slipped away with Shawn.

His head ached. Gus ground the heels of his palms into his eyes until rainbow starbursts overtook the darkness behind his eyelids. What had he just done? Why- what would possess him to think calling Shawn was a good idea right now? Part of the entire damn point of the date was to get some distance but at the slightest bit of pressure, he what? Caved? Of course he did, he’s not even surprised he did, just irritated that once again, Shawn got the best of him because this was most certainly somehow still Shawn’s fault.

He couldn’t deal with this right now. Faulty judgement and the folly of man could be lamented later. Right now, Gus needed to get out there and invite Monique on a stroll.

* * *

Estimated time of semi-solicited Shawn-shaped wrecking ball’s arrival, t-minus twenty minutes. It should be easy to get outside with time to spare, but how long did he want to hang around outside adlibbing while waiting for Shawn? What if Monique wanted to walk to somewhere else, away from the boardwalk? Maybe he should stall before they get outside, leave as little time to wander as possible. Or maybe-

Nineteen minutes left. He’d have to figure it out along the way and make it work.

(Definitely not Gus’s preferred method, but one that saw frequent employment when Shawn was affiliated with the circumstances. Go figure.)

It took some rounds of deep breathing and a pep talk to get him there, but t-minus fifteen saw Gus striding out of the public restroom at a moderate and respectable pace.

Monique perked up at his return, shining just a bit brighter at his company. He was fairly sure he should feel guiltier that his reaction to her was a soul deep desire to run away, but his emotional clown car was already at capacity, running out of gas, had lost a wheel, and had a janky window that didn’t roll all the way up. Guilt didn’t really want to get in that ride anyway, and he couldn’t blame it.

Arriving at the table, face to face again, panic spiked in his gut when Monique made to speak. What if she commented on the awkwardly long bathroom break he took? Gus was definitely not cleared to handle that level of awkward right now (even if it would eat up time nicely). He rushed to cut her off, suggesting they take this date on the go, and because Monique was a wonderful and perfect person, she agreed readily and without comment on Gus’s bathroom habits and what could have possibly taken that long in a public restroom.

He may or may not have dawdled at the cash register so that he could steal some extra moments to himself before whatever impending disaster he was blindly signing them up for struck (and damn if he didn’t know better but he was doing it anyway, huh). In a moment of inspiration, and maybe also because of a stern reminder from the cashier, he ordered an extra little pick-me-up to afford him at least another minute to hang out at the drop off counter without being considered an obstruction to business. He could almost pretend he was the same tired he was on an average workday instead of that kind of tired caused by being trapped in a twilight zone nightmare scenario. By the time he rejoined Monique, there was seven minutes left on the clock. At the five-minute mark, they were exiting the café and entering into the home stretch before the big finish. Except the Big Finish was listed on the playbook as ‘??? By Shawn Spencer, Featuring Burton Guster,’ which, understandably, instilled no small amount of anxiety.

In stark contrast to the miasma of nervous suspense hanging over Gus, Monique was bouncing along without a care in the world, crowing a greeting to the midday sun and spinning on the spot to share her enthusiasm with Gus. While he would love to say he’d suddenly had an epiphany and his brain dosed him with enough dopamine to purge his previous doubts from mind, it was actually vertigo that has him clutching her hand back as she began to tug him along.

He knew Monique was stunning. This is factual information he understood and agreed with and would whole heartedly recite under oath. Out in the Santa Barbara sun, she was almost even more so. Natural lighting agreed with her. For a shred of a moment at a time, he could even process this information, and, in isolation, it kindled a dull heat in his belly. Which was quickly and dispassionately doused during the rest of that moment by the cocktail being shaken, not stirred, up in his brain.

Was it nostalgia? Some inability to truly separate Monique in present from past, dooming her to be an idol of his memories but with no desire to truly unearth her from that resting place? Was it intimidation? Someone so bright and flawless that he couldn’t help but hesitate? The problem wasn’t her, he knew it wasn’t, couldn’t be. At this point though, Gus wasn’t going to glean any real answer to the conundrum, so he tried to drown it out by checking his mental timer, unable to surreptitiously check his watch when one hand was holding a full drink and the other was tangled with Monique’s.

There couldn’t be long left now. What mark were they at? Three minutes? Two? Could Monique feel how clammy his hand was? He hoped not. She probably did and didn’t bring it up because she was wonderful like that. He regretted that he wasn’t as wonderful in that moment. Not sorry for it, but regretful of it, in as much as you could be when your brain felted like a half-meted ice cream sundae.

Monique had started up her guileless chatter again, leading them on a meandering stroll along the wharf. If nothing else, Gus congratulated himself on not totally wrecking the date, despite the downward spiral he’d been experiencing. Given, Monique was content to fill the air all by her lonesome and appeared happy to simply have the company, so it wasn’t exactly a high bar to meet. But he was sure that if there had been additional pressure to perform, he could have risen to the occasion.

Probably.

Twenty minutes had surely come and gone by then and Gus’s nerves were jittering with a dark combination of dread and anticipation as sweat beaded at his temple. Monique swung their joined hands like a pendulum, gazing out towards the ocean as she talked about…something. Gus’s focus had completely abandoned him by this point, leaving him to tick the seconds by the sway of their hands. Back and forth, back and forth. How far had they walked by now? Shawn said he’d find them, but also Gus had pointed him towards Pauline’s Corndog Stand and they had passed by that within the first minute. How long has they been walking?

He needed to play it cool, he needed to pay attention, and on the outside, he surely looked placid and pleasant. But he couldn’t stop circling – how far away were they? How long until Shawn showed up so Gus could go home and forget this date ever happened? Monique wasn’t looking at Gus, and so he felt just confident enough to risk a look back towards Wide Awake, far enough behind them now that the sign couldn’t be read, but still discernable by an educated eye.

Fighting off a frown, Gus quickly turned back around-

And stopped.

(Lord Almighty, what had he done to deserve this.)

With Gus stalling in place, the casual stroll was brought to an abrupt but definitive close. He knew that he should be addressing the gentle tug on his arm and concerned noises Monique’s mouth was making that may or may not be words, but the priority of those items had just taken a sudden swan dive given recent developments.

So, (sort of) good news: Shawn had arrived on the scene. More confusing and much less assuring news: Shawn looked like he’d forgotten to get changed into his gear before mud wrestling the Swamp Thing and then forwent the post-match shower.

Also. He had a cat.

Gus blinked, hard. When nothing changed, be blinked again, harder, but to no avail. Standing a few yards in front of them, in all his messy glory, was Shawn Spencer, looking as you should have expected your ten-year-old to look when you called them in for dinner after letting them play outside sans supervision for a few hours. The kind of messy where you have to drag their ass upstairs and pressure clean them before anyone is allowed to have dinner because this is Not Acceptable.

Shawn’s hair was tousled every which way and tangled with shreds of foliage. Dirt was smudged across his cheek and nose, crumbling where it had dried on his arms. His formerly white shirt and acid wash jeans were muddied and rumpled, grass straining both knees like war wounds. Somehow, though, the flannel button up was immaculate.

There was also a cat.

Good Lord, why did he have a cat.

At least Shawn’s companion looked somewhat presentable, dusty brown tabby coat clean save for some green leaves and burs hooked into its long wispy fur. Regardless of how or why the cat was acquired, it seemed content to simply be wrapped in Shawn’s arms.

Had he the presence to think about it, Gus would have been sure that Shawn had been waiting for this exact opportunity, timing a mad dash to the center of the boardwalk just as Gus turned his head away. However, he did not have much presence of mind at the moment, so instead he boggled at his best friend, head filled with a deafening silence, waiting for the shoe to drop.

But the shoe didn’t just drop, oh no. The shoe was juggled for a moment, testing its weight while looking for the perfect spot to aim, before it was hucked full force at Gus’s gut.

“Gussy?” There was something off putting in her tone, but Monique’s implied question simply wasn’t as important as-

“Gus?” Shawn called, voice throaty and sounding half mad with disbelief. Gus was paralyzed, snared by wild eyes that seemed for him alone. Shawn stumbled forward, ungainly, body swaying like a drunkard thirteen sheets to the wind. “Gus, baby, is that you?”

The unexpected pet name knocked at least something loose in is head. Gus blinked rapidly as he came back to himself, but not soon enough to dodge the incoming footwear missile, let alone formulate how to even go about it cause the damn thing was probably heat-seeking.

“Gusty Gallows, Guppy Love- I- oh fuck,” Shawn cut himself off, scrubbing his hand across his mouth. Just looking at him was making Gus’s skin itch. “I thought I’d never see you again,” Shawn offered, with all the reverence and fear of guilty man confessing his sins before God.

“Shawn?” Gus called out, appropriately tentative for the moment – not that Gus knew what that moment was, but he could recognize A Moment when he saw one.

Gus recoiled when something pressed against his side, clawing into his arm as Shawn _keened_ and folded into himself like he’d taken a fist to the gut. Regardless of knowing this was a charade, the sight of Shawn distraught and haggard burned down Gus’s throat like acid reflux, raising hairs along his arms and sending unease skittering across his nerves.

“Do you know him- Gussy!” He ignored the hiss, shaking loose of the restricting vice attached to his side and stepping forward, letting his features fold into a countenance of growing concern.

Shawn was rocking in place now, body lifting and falling with each breath he took.

“Shawn?” When he garnered no response, he took another step forward and reached out, more insistent now. “Shawn, are you okay?”

As his fingers brushed fabric, Gus heard it. A whimper at first, quickly riding in volume until Shawn caught in the throes of a full-on hysterical laughing fit as he retreated from Gus’s gesture of comfort, hefting the cat higher on his chest and electing to jam his face in its fluff instead.

That cat was noticeably unbothered by the proceedings, even going as far as to lick at Shawn’s ear.

(Gus sort of wished he was that cat. Because then he wouldn’t care about the probably definitely fake meltdown his friend was having or feel the need to run away from perfect women.)

It was at least comforting to note that the cat came with a collar attached, which meant Shawn wasn’t pressing his face into the flea-infested coat of a stray cat. That didn’t eliminate the possibility of it being a flea-infested house cat, but at least there was also the possibility that it was a not flea-infested house cat too.

“Okay?” Shawn bit out, the tail end of each breath audibly warbling. “I’m- N-no, I’m- I don’t know! A-am I supposed to be okay?” Shawn’s eyes darted every which way as he worried at his lip, which Gus imagined he must have already been biting on to be that bright of a red.

Gus pressed tightened his own lips into a line, giving Shawn another once over. “You tell me. What happened to you?”

“W-what…what happened? What happened?” Shawn trailed off, shaking his head. “I-I… They-they took me. They took me and kept me like some sort of animal. Like an _experiment_. It was awful, babe. They talked at me, but the noises just made my head hurt. A-and, and they, they were fucking terrifying to look at. All gangly and pale and their faces, oh god, their faces…”

“Took- Who…who took you?”

Meeting Gus head on with wide eyes and not a trace of hesitation, Shawn answered with the same wired energy of a conspiracy theorist about to rock your world.

“ _The aliens._ ”

The what.

Shawn carried on, ignorant (or, more likely, gleefully playing at ignorant) of the momentary short circuit he’d caused. “Gus? Baby, honey, honey bunches of toaster poodles…how long was I gone?” It was Shawn reaching out now, fingers digging into Gus’s pristine button down, which forfeited that title the exact moment Shawn made contact.

It took a few extra moments to formulate a response since Gus was sort of still working through the alien abduction bombshell. “A week. You disappeared last week.” Gus likely looked a cross between worried and constipated as he answered quite a bit more woodenly than before.

“A week. Oh fuck, a whole week. I’m, I’m back now though, right?”

“If by ‘back’ you mean in Santa Barbara at Stearns Wharf, then sure. You’re back,” Gus relented, expression still tight as he half turned his head to share a bewildered look with Monique and maybe it wasn’t his best idea to make eye contact with someone he wanted to escape, but damn if it didn’t remind him of his motivation him stay on point. 

“Who is, uh- who’s she?” Gus jumped when Shawn invaded his space, lending a sense of privacy to the discussion. Given, it was a false sense of privacy as they were still speaking in clearly audible tones, but a sense of privacy none the less. “Was she helping you look for me?”

“Well, um-“ Gus hesitated, looking anywhere but at Shawn. The moment hung awkwardly, Shawn clearly expectant of an explanation Gus was clearly unwilling to give. Say it was a date and Shawn would lean into the slighted boyfriend bit again and Gus simply didn’t want to encourage that route right now. Instead, he chose to let Alien-Abductee-Shawn pick up the subtext of the situation. The slowly forming glare indicated that yes, Shawn has picked up the subtext Gus chose to arm him with and was ready to load it into a potato shooter to blast it at the closest human body.

“No.” Shawn stated simply, mustering more focus than he’d displayed for the entirety of the conversation thus far. “No, Gus, do not- _No._ ” Shawn drew back in disbelief. “Did you even _look_ for me?”

Gus pursed his lips, mirroring the furrow of Shawn’s brow. He absolutely was not letting Shawn make him the bad guy _again_. “Why would I look for you, Shawn? You left a note specifically telling me not-“

“I didn’t leave shit! No, oh no nono nooo-”

“Shawn, I think you need to calm down,” Gus attempted to soothe, sounding just this side of patronizing.

Shawn was, for his part, inconsolable at the perceived betrayal. “I’m…I can’t believe this. While I’m on a low orbiting spacecraft having my soul irrigated, you’re down here flirting?” What? Before he could start in on all the different things wrong with that single sentence, Shawn had already twisted his head around to stare Monique down, putting off about the same amount of genuine aggression and threat as a furious purse chihuahua. “How far have you gone already, huh? Newsflash, sugar bunny, he doesn’t hold you like he does me!” With that, Shawn was pressing further into Gus’s space until their faces were inches apart and he was left cursing his instinctual reaction to grab a hold of Shawn’s shoulder.

(Was it to steady Shawn? To steady himself? It was to steady someone, at least.)

Gus heaved a heavy sigh, sounding for all the world like a man who simply was not paid enough to put up with this nonsense, sidling back just enough so that they wouldn’t be breathing into each other’s mouths when Shawn turned on him for the next statement. “Shawn, you weren’t abducted-“

“Fuck you I wasn’t abducted!” On cue, Shawn was snapping back around, the cat curled against him lazily imitating the motion, which seemed highly unnecessary in Gus’s opinion. He didn’t need the cat’s judgement too. “I woke up from the what I wish was some sort of fever dream, in the woods, alone, with no one to help me but Peanut Butter, and-“

No, hold up- “Peanut butter?”

“Peanut Butter,” Shawn affirmed, burrowing his face into Peanut Butter’s chest before peering morosely up at Gus. The cheeky little fluff ball even tapped a paw at the crown of Shawn’s head, as though to console the human mess that held it prisoner. “They swapped our brains at one point and now we share a psychic link.”

Of course they did.

“Okay. Peanut Butter,” Gus enunciated carefully and slowly. “You did a good job finding me, Shawn. I’m going to help you now-“

Shawn pulled further away, yet with his hand still holding Gus’s shirt hostage, Gus was forced to follow to avoid tripping and faceplanting into either Peanut Butter’s soft but armed paws, or Shawn’s chest, neither of which seemed like a place Gus’s face should be for this conversation. “No! No, you- you didn’t even look for me! How could you not look for me!?”

“Because I thought you didn’t want me to.” Gus rolled his eyes, lacking the patience discuss the details of that decision with Shawn in his current state. “Clearly, there was a misunderstanding. Let me make it up to you by-“

“Are you sorry?”

It wasn’t even worth wondering if Shawn was serious right now; absolutely and not in the slightest. This was the biggest production he’d managed all week, maybe even all month, and he was clearly milking it for all the sympathy he could. “Yes, Shawn,” Gus said, taking a deep breath to console himself, before admitting his final defeat. “I’m sorry.”

And just like that, the aggression evaporated, and Shawn was collapsing into Gus’s single available arm, tucking himself and Peanut Butter close, who chirped a few times, but thankfully did not seem inclined to lash out at the manwich they’d been caught as the filling of. “Oh babe, baby bottle pop, I knew you cared.” Gus held very, very still. “Can we go home now?”

His spine tingled as he turned his head to finally give his attention, however briefly, back towards his hapless date, thereby further exposing his neck to invasive puffs of hot air from his ‘Space Invader’. “I’m sorry, Monique. We’re going to have to cut this short,” He said, doing his best at expressing the appropriate amount of reproach the whole debacle called for. “This is a new one for him. I think it’d be best if I got him to the hospital now.”

“Y-yeah, yeah, of course that’s okay, Gussy!” She rushed to assure him, like the perfect wonderful person she was. She approached rapidly, now that she’d been invited into the situation and it had been deemed that Shawn probably wasn’t an overgrown goblin that got lost outside of the woods. Her wide-eyed look was exchanged for a mild frown as she cooed at Shawn. “Hey, whatever happened, you’re gonna be okay now, you hear? Gussy’s got you and he’s a good guy, yeah?” Even as she said this, she shot him Gus odd look, one he couldn’t fully decipher the meaning of and hoped it didn’t mean she was about to broach the subject of who Shawn was to him and if this date had occurred under the false pretense of them both being single. Thankfully, it did not mean she was about to ask difficult questions and instead offered to drive for them.

Predictably, Shawn began whining into his neck at the suggestion, and less predictably, Peanut Butter had taken an interest in Gus and was attempting to shove a little arm down the collar of his shirt. All in all, time to bounce.

“It’d probably be best if it was just me with him right now, but we appreciate the offer,” Gus said, not unkindly, as he patted Shawn on the shoulder and offered Monique a weary smile.

His thoughts from earlier trickled back in, no longer the uncontrolled flood of a bursting dam but a gentle cascade of clarity. Yes, Monique was beautiful; she had been in high school, and was even more so now, adorned with maturity and success. There was an undefeatable pep in her step that would carry her wherever she wished to go, and he hoped she did what would make her most happy with that. It was easy to look at her and say, ‘pretty much perfect.’ There would be no awkward silences with Monique, no shortage of conversation or warmth. She was the kind of girl you could take home and she’d have your parents wrapped around her fingers in minutes.

With Shawn plastered against him and tiny fuzzy cat mitts tickling at his neck, Gus knew without a doubt that there was never going to be something between himself and Monique. Maybe in a different place, a different time. If they’d found each other again sooner, he would have been enamored enough to silence the other whimsical notions of his metaphorical heart. Maybe that’s what he was seeing now, what he’d been seeing the whole day. An opportunity that he simply couldn’t take (simply wouldn’t take).

He hesitated, smile slipping away. He could try to reassure Monique now, to clear this up before the seeds of doubt really had a chance to take root. Just tell her this isn’t what it looks like, that Shawn must have hurt himself, that they were just friends.

He didn’t say any of those things.

“I’ll uh. I’ll text you later, okay?” And later, he’d explain the whole imaginary context behind the imaginary scenario. That Shawn was his roommate who stormed out week ago, leaving a note that said he was moving to Nicaragua and not to bother calling. He’d tell her that no, Shawn and he were not involved, and the ramblings were a result of a concussion that likely stemmed from crashing his motorcycle in a ditch just outside of town. She would realize, sometime during the conversation, that this Shawn was one and the same with the one that had shadowed Gus anytime they’d spoken in the past and make a joke about history repeating itself. He’d tell her maybe a little bit too much about what it was like imaginary living with Shawn and that they’d made up and no, Shawn wasn’t running away to Nicaragua. She’d offer to get lunch during work the next week and they’d settle into a routine as work friends and Gus would feel comfortable enough to interject his opinions in her endless spiels.

For now though, he beat a hasty retreat, not letting himself linger on the what-if or the why-nots of Monique Reyes.

* * *

As it turned out, openly raving and wailing on a public boardwalk tended to draw a crowd, so by the time Gus was hauling Shawn away, they’d gathered a respectable number of spectators. With any luck, this would sate Shawn’s theatric sensibilities for the next few days so that Gus could recover from the sheer amount of ‘awkward eye contact with strangers’ he had just experienced within the span of five minutes. At the very least, while Shawn was hanging off him like a limpet, Shawn didn’t drag his feet as they beat as hasty a retreat as believably possible following that performance.

Back on the sidewalk, they hobbled along for another half a block before separating in tandem.

Gus heaved out a sigh as the tension of the past…entire afternoon began to ebb, shooting a look behind them to convince the lingering fizzles of apprehension to dissipate. They were at least one hundred fifty yards away from the scene of the crime, it didn’t appear they’d been followed, no lingering stares from passerby; for all intents and purposes, he and Shawn were invisible civilians once again.

The moment of relief was reminded not to get too comfortable though and received a spinning DDT for its trouble.

“Here, hold him for me would you.”

“Wha- Shawn!” That was all the warning Gus received before he was (forcibly) passed Peanut Butter and the long-forgotten-but-still-along-for-the-ride drink from the café was snatched out of his hand - which was just as well because he would have wound up spilling it all over himself trying to get a hold of the cat before his shirt became a victim of Peanut Butter’s claws. Thankfully, Peanut Butter settled down once he was able to shove his face into the same spot Shawn had occupied prior and was once again smacking a paw around the collar of Gus’s shirt.

Once he felt it safe enough to look away and he wouldn’t become an unexpected victim of a clawed assault, he shot Shawn a properly incensed glare. His expression soured even further when he saw Shawn with the lid popped off the stolen beverage, chugging it with the gusto of a college frat doing a keg stand, complete with an obnoxious burp at the end.

“Oh, that hit the spot- OW!” After receiving a swift kick to the shin, Shawn was finally looking at Gus, but instead of expressing an iota of remorse (which, honestly, would have been far more concerning than anything else Shawn could have done in that moment), he was offering the embittered pout of a man being punished for crimes he did not commit, or at the very least, should not be held accountable for as they were barely even crimes. “Was that really necessary?”

“Yes, it was. That was my drink -“

“Only because you hadn’t given it to me yet,” Shawn dismissed, voice thickened mockingly eyes rolled back, before continuing normally. “Don’t start, you don’t even like lattes. That thing was lukewarm, dude. You had your chance.”

(Shawn liked lattes, though. Said they made the coffee flavor bearable enough to enjoy while getting his caffeine fix, all at once.)

Tsking, Gus huffed and chose to let the point drop. Some things just weren’t worth it. Presently, he would rather not argue about what drinks he may or may not choose to buy for himself and how it was his choice if he wanted to waste them.

In typical fashion though, there was no leaving well enough alone. “I bet you didn’t even taste it.”

“Shawn! Do you want be mad at you?”

“Not really, no. Can you hold this for me too?”

It’s not like this kind of contradictory, backwards-ass nonsense was unusual, but it never failed to rustle Gus’s jimmies when Shawn pulled this crap. “No, sorry, my hands are a little full right now,” he said flatly, with an expression to match. If one were to look, they would see quite clearly that Gus had both arms clamped around a cat, one hand on the hind end, the other trying to fend off a paw stretching to poke at his nostrils.

“He has claws, he can hold onto you just fine on his own. Here, just-“ This time, Gus knew what was coming and elbowed Shawn’s hand away, barely turning his head enough to avoid Peanut Butter picking his nose. He would swear these two must be in cahoots. “Come on, will you just-“

Gus ducked sideways and Shawn followed. “No! Hold it yourself!”

“Just use your neck or something! I need both my hands to do this.”

“Oh, well that’s interesting. I need both my hands too!”

“You only had one before this; you’re fine. Here, just-“

“No!”

“Take the cup, Gus!”

Soon they were pelting down the street, ducking and swerving (not always successfully) around pedestrians and other obstructions until Gus was shouting at Shawn to just throw it away while they were literally playing reverse Keep Away with a public trash can in between them. Simultaneously, Peanut Butter made the strategic decision to switch targets and shoved a fluffy paw in his open mouth, obligating Gus to break the stare down to deal with that crisis.

He couldn’t even be left to sputter and spit in peace as he was prompted by a hand on his shoulder to start moving again - not that Shawn wouldn’t have heard the end of it if he’d ditched Gus while he was carrying his, presumably stolen, cat.

“Just hold him lower and it won’t happen again.” Oh, real helpful advice, what a brain twister that was. Gus never would have thought of that himself.

What would have been a surely scathing reply died in his throat when he saw that Shawn had his dirty shirt half pulled off and was using the inside to furiously rub at his face. When he was done there, Shawn moved onto his arms, his shirt getting yanked around like an unruly rag and generally not given the respect one should normally reserve for an article of clothing that preserved your modesty. Obviously, Shawn had little qualms about that, but such a blatant disregard for common decency was hard to look away from. Which was why you didn’t do it.

Gus obviously needed a reminder of the daunting circumstances he’d found himself victim to because this was when Shawn caught him staring.

(It had been more like openly gawking than just staring, but that notion was in direct violation of house rules, so he kicked it under the couch and pretended it had never been there.)

Before Shawn could more than waggle his eyebrows, Gus was already snapping his head away to watch where they were waking. “We’re in public, Shawn,” Gus admonished, taking care to enunciate clearly. “I don’t want to be seen with you if you’re going to get arrested for public indecency by our coworkers.”

This, of course earned, Gus a raspberry for his trouble. “We’re in a fuckin beach town, dude. People walk around shirtless all the time.”

“Not in the suburban quarters, they don’t.”

“What about the beachside suburban quarters?”

It was at this point something important occurred to Gus, and not just because he wanted to move away from the topic of how appropriate it was to walk around shirtless on a public street outside people’s houses. “Wait! My car is back at the Wharf parking lot! What are we doing on Natoma Avenue? Shawn, why are we here?”

Honestly, Gus half expected a shrug for an answer, but apparently, they had actual business to attend to. “Collecting a check, my friend. How do I look?” Shawn tossed his arms out like a ringmaster at opening ceremonies, except the presentation was not a selection of strange and exciting acts, but it was the hasty hand groomings of his own person. His hair had been sorted out as well as it could be, fashioned in a messy coif that was reminiscent of when Shawn was first letting his hair grow out after arriving back in Santa Barbara. Most of the dirt had been wiped off his face and arms, which were glowing red from the rough treatment. The overshirt really brought it together, though, spotless enough to tip the balance in favor of ‘roughed up from an average day outdoors doing outdoor things’ instead of ‘crawled out of a hole in the ground but pretending nothing is strange about it.’

“Like my couch would get secondhand grass stains from simply being in the same room as you.”

“Aces. Alright, come here, you charming little bastard.”

For about half a second, Gus’s lungs experienced true and honest fear for their life as they were personally assaulted by that statement – right up until Peanut Butter was plucked out of stiff arms and he realized no, Shawn had not called him a bastard in a saucy tone. (Nor had he called Gus ‘charming’ or ‘little’ with the affectionate cooing undertone most people reserved for things they loved unabashedly. Since interpreting bursts of adrenaline was more an art then a science, Gus ruled that he was experiencing relief on the tail end of momentary panic.)

Armed with Peanut Butter once more and looking at least passable for casual public encounters, Shawn led them down a couple more streets and straight up to the front door of a well-kept middle-class home with a hedge fence and cobblestone stone porch. Gus hung back as Shawn delivered their feline compatriot to his homestead, much to the joy of the woman who answered the door. Once they started talking shop about how Shawn ‘divined’ her cat’s whereabouts with his otherworldly psychic abilities, Gus felt secure in checking out of that conversation and checking in on himself.

The day had certainly…not yielded his intended results. Despite numerous promises to himself to not get suckered into the shit Shawn comes up with, the end of any given day typically saw Gus shoulder to shoulder with Shawn, knee deep in it. He knew how these things started and ended, and as much as he’d like to blame Shawn, and would be right to do so as Shawn quite often yanked the choice right out of his hands, what action did Gus take to actually put a stop to the behavior?

Was it so bad that he kept coming back? That Shawn was his emergency button and somehow, knowing that unleashing Shawn onto a scene held the high likelihood of turning the day into a madcap adventure was a comfort?

It was hard to say, but it did create a bit of a conflict of interest for Gus.

This was pointless. Gus kneaded his temples as he forcibly evicted the unwanted speculations. Enough was enough for one day. The only thing he wanted to do was to get a second lunch because a sandwich and salad hardly put a dent in the sustenance quota Gus had to meet to maintain his health and happiness.

He was pulled from his idle musings when Shawn slapped his shoulder, waggling an envelope of, presumably, cash in front of his face, wearing an expression reminiscent of a goblin laughing in your face after eating your left shoe in front of you. That is to say, Shawn looked incredibly pleased with himself and his shit-eating open-mouthed smile said so. “We just got paaaaid!”

He gave Shawn a drawn look for a second before accepting the proffered fist bump. Money was money, after all. But still. “Missing pet cases, really? How is this a step up from the cheating boyfriends?”

“Because people will pay more to get back something they know they love than to prove that something they already have doubts about doesn’t.”

That didn’t ring quite right, but Gus could get after Shawn about the cases he accepted on behalf of Psych and didn’t bother recording, effectively making them under the table business deals, later. There was something just a mite bit more pressing that had been waiting to be said from the moment the door had been answered.

Glancing furtively back towards the house as they took their leave, just to be sure the woman wasn’t outside and able to overhear the judgement about to be served, before rounding on Shawn. “Peanut Butter’s name is actually _Oreos_?”

“I _know_ , right!? He’s a brown cat, why would you name him Oreos!?”

They traded grimaces over the cosmic tragedy. He would always be Peanut Butter in their hearts.

“Where did you find him anyway- no, scratch that,” Gus paused and shared a finger gun with Shawn over good use of puns, “ _how_ did you find him? He’s a house cat, it’s not like he left a trail.”

“Well you see, my dear Guster, that’s where you’re wrong-“

Shawn proceeded to regale him with an elaborate tale of using his psychic senses to track Peanut Butter’s aura to City Hall, where he uncovered a plot between the Local Housecats Association and the underrepresented Pigeon Party to push out the invasive squirrel population from suburban areas, except Peanut Butter tried to be a hero and went off to fight the squirrel menace on his own instead of letting the bureaucratic process stop him from taking real, progressive action. When Gus called bullshit, Shawn shrugged and admitted that he scoped out the nearby neighborhood and found Peanut Butter tangled in a neighbor’s hose. The family living there went on vacation (honeymoon in Maui, according to Shawn, and Gus was not about to ask how Shawn knew that piece of information, if only for the sake of plausible deniability) and wasn’t likely to be checking their yard for trespasser for the next couple of weeks, let alone run a rescue operation. The finding of Peanut Butter had been the easy part. The catching him once Shawn untangled the hose and Peanut Butter bolted for the woods, not so much.

Tomorrow, Gus would have to make a new plan to address the fact that the pineapple shaped end table has not been dealt with in the slightest and appeared to be spreading like a fungus because the mental couch now sported a pineapple print that he couldn’t remember if it was there before or not. Tomorrow he’d likely be racked with nerves and twisted up in frustration over what the decisions he was making right this second, which were only going to feed into his condition.

That was tomorrow though.

Today, he was worn out enough to choose to forget why he was fighting himself. Today, he wanted to do something that would soothe the tension in his head and heart until he could fall asleep loose and satisfied. Today, he was getting Chinese takeout and watching Pretty in Pink with his best friend.


End file.
